Ears in Motion

The occasional breeze rustling the leaves high in the black walnut tree was the only relief from the humidity that blanketed the hillside in the late afternoon. A goldfinch and a nuthatch traded places on a nearby branch. The thriving vegetation below was growing back from a mower’ recent attempt to slow the spread of some of the invasive species. My elevated seat clung to one of the many white pines leftover from an old Christmas tree farm. It was a comfortable place to watch the activity around me. The birds came and went, a blue jay cried in the branches above and a horse moved through the trees on the neighboring farm.

A doe and her fawn moving through woodland vegetation.

Out of the corner of my eye something moved. Larger than a squirrel, but too small to be a deer. Too brown to be a fox but just the right size. I needed a better look and turned my head slowly against the flaky bark behind me. I smiled. It was a deer, just a smaller deer. A young fawn about forty yards away. The speckled white dots and its size reminded me of some species of small awkward cat. Its mother followed closely scanning the hillside with her watchful eye as her ears moved constantly like little autonomous turrets. Though I did not make a sound, it seemed like somehow her curious ears had discovered me. She looked in my direction, but she couldn’t quite figure out what I was. Not frightening enough to cause her to flee with her young fawn in tow, but definitely enough to arouse some concern.

We watched each other, the doe and I, as her fawn scampered back and forth in the pokeweed. Convinced the large thing that she saw in the tree had not been there the day before, she bobbed her head attempting to figure out this new part of her environment. I remained motionless and called on the saint-like patience required to out-wait an inquisitive deer. Despite its mother’s suspicions, the fawn continued to scamper around its edible playground. 

Eventually, the doe came to the conclusion that whatever was up in the tree had remained still for long enough. It must be okay to continue moving along. She flicked her tail and began to feed again, sucking up pokeweed shoots like a big brown vacuum. They moved together along the trail, the doe continued her watchful browsing and the fawn zigzagged around her. I watched until they vanished into the brush at the top hill with one final flick of a bushy white tail. 

I listened as the birds chirped. It felt strange. I was aware that something had changed between last summer and this one. Undoubtedly in my mind, and perhaps in the woods around me. I had become a hunter. I had a new relationship with these animals. An extremely complicated mixture of gratitude, affection and an awareness that these beautiful creatures are also food. I can both love and kill deer. As strange as it sounds, for me these sentiments are not mutually exclusive. In fact, that conflict is one of the reasons I feel called to explore these ideas. 

The intimacy involved and the sadness I feel killing an animal is not divorced from my passion for the hunt and the pleasure that comes with the bounty of the land. But it is challenging. To hold the complexity of that moment. The doe and the fawn, moving together through the lush summer vegetation brought a smile to my face, but I was mindful that I might encounter the same pair in the cooler autumn air, with my bow in hand. 

Conceivably, there would have been a much different outcome.